but my premise of the puritans holds up.....this nation was settled by God-fearing believers....If they had not come to America you'd be living in a tent and hunting deer for your supper.

So wicca can scream for it's rights and muslims can build 20 million mosques in this nation...

at the end of the day it comes down to the Indians and the Pilgrims.....

one group was already here worshipping the earth and gods of the earth and the other group came over worshipping the God of the Bible.

So if it all goes back to worshipping the earth , sun, moon and stars or "a force" ,mohammed, or gaia or the worship of animals...we're gonna go right back to wearing buckskin and cooking over a fire..because this nation will not survive. It's one nation under ONE GOD..the Living God Most High...

God didn't give us modern technology. Humans did. And America isn't founded on christian beliefs. And even if it was, what does the religion of the people f the past have to do with the people of the present? Your ancestors probably worshipped Odin so by your logic you should worship Odin.

Perhaps I am wrong here, but weren't there a number of communities already present - Spanish in Florida and California, French in Ohio Valley and along the Mississippi, British fishing communities along the east coast, Dutch in New York (Amsterdam) and so on - long before the arrival of the Pilgrims?

Well, disregarding your idiotic ignorance of the population demographics from the colonial period of America's history, you need to take a look at who formed the government, and wrote the founding documents of the government. To quote the treaty of tripoli (negotiated under the authority of George Washington, and signed by John Adams... you might have heard of them),Article 11: \"As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion...\"

Does that mean that if we turn to fundie Christianity our level of progress reverts to Pilgrim levels? >>

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Gadren, that seems to be exactly what T.J. is insinuating. The irony here is that conservative Christian fundies are the ones who are fighting scientific inquiry and technological advancement tooth and claw!

but my premise of the puritans holds up.....this nation was settled by God-fearing believers....

Well, first it was settled by natives. The \"God-fearing believers\" were illegal immigrants.

If they had not come to America you'd be living in a tent and hunting deer for your supper.

Um, no. You'd be in Europe fighting some holy war or other. You should be glad you're not; you're in America which is a secular country.

So wicca can scream for it's rights and muslims can build 20 million mosques in this nation...

Yes, they can. And they will. Why shouldn't they?

at the end of the day it comes down to the Indians and the Pilgrims.....

one group was already here worshipping the earth and gods of the earth and the other group came over worshipping the God of the Bible.

Quite true. The Bible-worshipping Christians were at the height of incompetence and ended up starving. (I guess they didn't pray hard enough!) The heathen non-Christian natives kindly helped them out. The compassionate Christians murdered most of them and stole their land in return.

So if it all goes back to worshipping the earth , sun, moon and stars or \"a force\" ,mohammed, or gaia or the worship of animals...we're gonna go right back to wearing buckskin and cooking over a fire..because this nation will not survive.

Says the fundie trying to destroy science in favor of his little book. If we only followed the BuyBull, that is what we would be doing now. Luckily, we had scientists who assume that the universe can be explained without a god, and a secular government who let them work. If you want to see what the country would be like when religion was in control, see \"dark ages.\" Face it; your sky fairy is just as worthless as Earth fairies.

It's one nation under ONE GOD..the Living God Most High...

No, it's a secular nation. If you want a nation under one god, I'll be happy to fly you to Iran.

Actually, contrary to the opinion of T.J. here, the Native Americans were fairly advanced in the ways of technology and medicene, they just weren't really big on buildings. They were also considerably cleaner than the Europeans (This would ultimatley be their downfall).

Of course, we're ignoring Jamestown, the French settlements in Quebec and the Spanish settlements in Central America and what is now the southern United States, but hey, you're on a roll. Read a real book, fuckwad!